Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
A variety of methods exist to optically interrogate biological tissues or other materials at the micro-scale (i.e., at scales at or smaller than a few micrometers). Such methods can include imaging techniques used to generate images of a sample at the micro-scale. Such techniques can include a variety of methods of optical microscopy for receiving, focusing, or otherwise conditioning image light received from a sample. In some examples, an objective of an optical microscope or other imaging instrument could be configured to be in contact with an oil or other imaging fluid to facilitate higher-resolution imaging.
Such imaging techniques can also include a variety of methods for illuminating a sample, e.g., to elicit fluorescence, to bleach a fluorophore, to illuminate the sample at a particular location and/or wavelength (e.g., using a method of confocal microscopy), to provide structured illumination, or some other method for illumination.
Optically interrogating biological tissues or other materials can also include illuminating the tissues or materials and detecting a property of the interaction between the illumination and the tissues or materials. This could include detecting a property of light transmitted through, scattered by, refracted by, or otherwise modified by interaction with the tissues or materials. Such detected properties could include absorption spectra, transmission spectra, scattering spectra, or other properties. In some examples, a dimension, roughness, identity, or other information about the biological tissues (e.g., about biological cells) or other materials could be determined from the detected optical properties.